Sunday, January 15, 2012

The first lady jumped head first into a discussion about racial issues.

She and her husband, the first African-American president, have mostly avoided addressing race except in oblique terms since reaching the White House.

Earlier this week, responding to the publication of New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s book “The Obamas,” Michelle Obama veered sharply off that cautious path.

Though she said she had not read the book — which was the target of a fierce White House pushback that was widely criticized as counter-productive — Obama took issue with the criticisms she perceived had been leveled against her.

“That’s been an image that people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced,” she told CBS’s Gayle King. “That I’m some angry black woman.”

From what I understand, Kantor's book reports that Michelle Obama was quietly fuming about the failures of Barack Obama's staff, including Rahm Emanuel, and that when Mr. Obama reported Mrs. Obama's disagreements with their approach (disagreements that she never vocalized herself except to her husband), that Emanuel and the rest of the staff bristled at her criticisms. So is Kantor trying to paint Emanuel as an "angry white man?" Or does maybe race have nothing to do with this, and it's about political and strategic differences happening in the White House, with anger and disagreement coming from all sides-- and races?

Just when is the race-baiting ever going to come to an end in this country? Yes racism exists. No, you're not doing anything to fight actual racism when you call everything racist.